1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to financial data processing in an e-Currency platform, and more particularly, to processing e-Commerce tokens which have involved off-line transactions.
2. Background
Electronic currencies (“e-Currency”) are agreed-upon digital objects and records that may be used for an exchange of goods or services. e-Currencies may provide new degrees of anonymity, control, reach and function to users, and endeavor to meet a wide range of technical and financial requirements. e-Currencies span both privately created currencies and the sovereign currencies of nations, and may include digital representations of physical capital, virtualized currencies, earned or assigned, or achieved values, and virtual currencies. e-Currencies are becoming an important medium of exchange in today's increasingly digitized economies. This is reflected in the proliferation of numerous types of e-Currencies, from organized currency systems such as PayPal™, WebMoney™ and Ven™, to open architecture e-Currency systems such as Bitcoin™ and Ripple™. These are supplemented by a plurality of informal e-Currency systems, such as Microsoft™ X-Box Live™ points, and credits for Facebook™ gaming, such as Facebook™ credits and Zynga™ credits. As consumers begin adopting the use of these new forms of currency, the relative value of these e-Currencies as compared to traditional hard currencies or goods and services will be called into question. Additionally, the inclusion of grass-roots social or privatized currencies and bartering creates questions regarding the ability to validate, authenticate and coordinate transactions across diverse forms of payment and trade that traditionally had little or no interaction.
A platform for tracking and validating e-Currency tokens has been described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/488,553 filed Jun. 5, 2012. The platform provides lifetime tracking of a token, real time transaction support, secure authentication and validation services, and a ranking of veracity based on collected, historical and predictive models.
In the event a user of the platform makes an off-line transaction involving a token from the platform then a system is needed to allow a token to re-appear on-line at a later time and continue to be authenticated, validated, and rated by the platform. It is believed such a system would constitute a significant improvement to the art of financial data processing.
Application Ser. No. 13/488,553 filed Jun. 5, 2012, should be incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.